Marvel Boy - Definition and Overview

Marvel Boy is the name of several fictional characters created and published by Marvel Comics:

• Robert Grayson was the 1950s Marvel Boy. Grayson was the son of Dr. Horace Grabshield (later Anglicized as Grayson), a scientist who fled the Earth with his infant son during the rise of Nazi Germany. The Graysons landed on Uranus, where they were greeted by the native Eternals. Robert was given a costume and a pair of powerful bracelets, and returned to Earth to battle crime. Much later, he appeared in the pages of Fantastic Four, where he became the insane Crusader and died. The anthology What If showed a world where Marvel Boy was a member of a team of 1950s Avengers; this alternate world was destroyed in the pages of Avengers Forever.
• Wendell Vaughn was the 1970s Marvel Boy, though he only used that name once before becoming Marvel Man and later Quasar. He used the bracelets of the 1950s Marvel Boy, which were revealed to be the alien Quantum Bands given by the cosmic entity Eon to the Protector of the Universe.
• Vance Astrovik was the 1980s Marvel Boy. He used that codename for some time before being sent to prison in the pages of New Warriors; he later adopted the codename of Justice.
• Noh-Varr is the most recent Marvel Boy to appear, in an eponymous miniseries by Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones. He is an alien of the pink-skinned Kree species, although he hails from another universe. Upon arriving on Earth, he became an anti-hero styled after Captain Marvel but with elements of teenage rebellion added to the mix.